[SOLVED] UEFI-boot stopped working after bios-update

After a BIOS-update my system complains about "no bootable devices found", but when I insert the Arch USB-media with EFI-support, the usb-bootloader does find my refind-bootloader and can succesfully load it...

Other things I've tried:- Resetting BIOS to defaults and removing CMOS-battery- Recreate + format my EFI-fat partition- Remove my entries with efibootmgr and add refind-entry again- Reinstalled refind (but that shouldn't be the problem as it loads without any problems via the USB-media)

Some info about my system that could be important(?):I'm using GPT partitions with a SSD (I've also recently installed an extra HDD which still has a legacy grub2 entry on it)The motherboard I'm using is an Intel DH77EB

This is really starting to give me headaches :-(Any suggestions are welcome but I'm already starting to think about going back to legacy bios..

Re: [SOLVED] UEFI-boot stopped working after bios-update

Firmware updates usually wipe the NVRAM entries, which store data on your boot loaders. The official solution is to re-run efibootmgr (or a similar tool in another OS) to re-register whatever boot loader(s) you want to use. Follow the original installation instructions for your boot loader to do this. An alternative is to copy the boot loader so that it uses the name EFI/BOOT/bootx64.efi, as cfr suggests.

Re: [SOLVED] UEFI-boot stopped working after bios-update

Thank you both for your suggestions!

I've just tried copying the rEFInd .efi to /boot/efi/EFI/boot/bootx64.efi and it works! Only thing was I now had two options in refind, first booted Arch, the second got me in a loop where it loaded rEFInd again but this time in a defunct way.I added

dont_scan_dirs EFI/boot

to /boot/efi/EFI/refind/refind.conf and now everything works like a charm!

Could anyone maybe explain why it worked before without EFI/boot/bootx64.efi ?

Also @srs5694 I would have expected my NVRAM to be empty, the strange thing is efibootmgr -v still had all the entries from before the BIOS-update (if I remember correctly even when I pulled out cmos battery for a long time those entries were still there..)

Re: [SOLVED] UEFI-boot stopped working after bios-update

justl wrote:

Thank you both for your suggestions!

I've just tried copying the rEFInd .efi to /boot/efi/EFI/boot/bootx64.efi and it works! Only thing was I now had two options in refind, first booted Arch, the second got me in a loop where it loaded rEFInd again but this time in a defunct way.I added

dont_scan_dirs EFI/boot

to /boot/efi/EFI/refind/refind.conf and now everything works like a charm!

Could anyone maybe explain why it worked before without EFI/boot/bootx64.efi ?

Before reading the below, I'd have said it worked because you had suitable NVRAM entries then, but you no longer do. I'll have to modify that, though, to say that something must have changed in your NVRAM entries....

Also @srs5694 I would have expected my NVRAM to be empty, the strange thing is efibootmgr -v still had all the entries from before the BIOS-update (if I remember correctly even when I pulled out cmos battery for a long time those entries were still there..)

Without seeing the complete "efibootmgr -v" output, I can't say with certainty, but my hunch is that something critical but non-obvious has changed. My first guess is that the BootOrder entry is now empty, or omits rEFInd from the list. It could be something else, though, such as an altered pathname or GUID on the relevant entry.

Re: [SOLVED] UEFI-boot stopped working after bios-update

I have updated my Thinkpad's bios twice in a fruitless attempt to fix a problem that turned out to not be related to the bios. Anyway, the first time I totally expected the NVRAM entries to disappear as well, but they remained. This was also the case for the second bios update I performed. What didn't stay consistent were most of the settings in the bios. Strangely though, the hardware that I had turned off from the bios (fingerprint reader, WWAN, webcam) stayed set to disabled and the NVRAM entries were there... yet everything else was back to the defaults. Peculiar, eh?